Oro-Medonte taxes rise 1.6 per cent

Orillia Today

ORO-MEDONTE - Oro-Medonte residents will see their property taxes rise 1.65 per cent in the coming year.
For the average home, assessed at about $380,000, that translates to a tax increase of about $55 in 2013.
“This budget positions the township to meet infrastructure requirements and continues to maintain Oro-Medonte’s favourable property tax-rate position within Simcoe County,” said Mayor Harry Hughes.
Included in the capital budget are continued investments in road rehabilitation and a one per cent contribution to reserves, as well as a spending increase of close to one per cent for infrastructure work.
Hughes said the township had been building its infrastructure fund over the past several years to meet coming demands.
“That put our increases up higher at that time, but the payoff is, when we run into larger infrastructure (needs) … having anticipated that you don’t see as large a bite,” he added.
Budget items beyond the township’s control included increased OPP costs and $184,000 reduction to the Provincial Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund allocation, a transfer payment to municipalities.
Those payments are projected to continue declining over the next four years as the province diverts a larger portion of those infrastructure funds to paramedic services, Hughes said.
“They took it out of one pocket and put it in another,” he said.
Additionally included in the budget is an allocation for renovations to the community centre arena.
The building requires extensive work on the ceiling, floor pipes and boards.
“We also know that the water supply is not sufficient, we need a new well,” he said. “The plumbing in the whole arena needs a complete overhaul.”
Residents will have an opportunity to chime in on the renovation plans during upcoming public open house sessions where the township will share draft plans for the project.
Council must decide between spending $2.2 million for a ‘Band-Aid’ fix or $4 million “to turn it into a modern facility and upgrade it with some more amenities,” Hughes said.
Times and dates of the sessions will be posted on the township’s website.
“Our first choice, if we could have done it would have been to have built a new arena,” he said. “We can’t do that unless there are substantial grants available from the federal government and the province, and they just aren’t there.”